Government stunned by Army chief's Iraq blast

The Daily Mail reports the shocking comments of The Chief of the General Staff, General Sir Richard Dannatt.

General Sir Richard Dannatt said troops should come home within two years - flatly contradicting the Prime Minister's policy that the military will stay "as long as it takes". In unprecedented comments he warned that the Army could 'break' if British soldiers are kept too long in Iraq.

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His views have sent shockwaves through Government.

They are a total repudiation of the Prime Minister, who has repeatedly insisted that British presence in Iraq is morally right and has had no effect on our domestic security.

Sir Richard, who took up his post earlier this year, warned that "our presence in Iraq exacerbates" the "difficulties we are facing around the world."

He lambasts Tony Blair's desire to forge a "liberal democracy" in Iraq as a "naive" failure and he warns that "whatever consent we may have had in the first place" from the Iraqi people "has largely turned to intolerance."